How CSS Specificity Works

All of the parts and pieces of CSS (selectors and declarations) don't mean much unless you target them in the right manner... enter CSS specificity.

How Does CSS Specificity Work?

Simply put, CSS specificity allows you target an element in your DOM. Here's how it works:

Every CSS selector gets a 3 digit score:

If the selector contains an ID reference (#myItem in the example below) then digit #1 of your score gets a +1.

If the selector contains a class, pseudo-class or attribute then digit #2 of your score gets a +1 for each occurrence.

It the selector contains an element or psuedo-element then give digit #3 of your score a +1 for each occurrence.

EXAMPLE
Let's say you're trying to target a list element in your HTML but you know in the world of CSS there's always a number of different ways to use selectors to style your DOM target. Using the above scoring method you could end up with 2 different scores, but the higher score would be more specific, and consequently applied to your DOM target.

In the example below you want to apply CSS code to make the only list element on the page blue:

#myItem wins and is more specific, and the text is colored blue. (Give it a try, copy and paste and even play with the order of the selectors (move #myItem to the bottom of the selector list- the text will still be blue)).

Why Should I Care?

Here's the use case where I gained my CSS Specificity appreciation:

I was working on an Angular project using PrimeNG controls (those cool panel, form and page layout controls that are available to the application in a simple tag format) and needed to apply styles to DOM objects that were generated by the control after page render and not visible or available before the page request; the API simply did not expose that level of control to manipulate the objects I needed to style.

With CSS Specificity I was able to target the generated DOM object with my CSS - AFTER the page request, where it seemed impossible to do so with only the control's API.